Obama prods nations toward reconciliation

Calls on Turkey, Armenia to resolve dispute.

Calls on Turkey, Armenia to resolve dispute.

April 07, 2009

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- President Barack Obama steered clear of the term "genocide" while addressing Turkish lawmakers Monday about the widespread killings of Armenians in the final years of the Ottoman Empire. The bloodshed happened nearly a century ago but is one of the most contentious issues in relations between Turkey and the United States. Turkey discounts the widely held view that there was a systematic campaign to wipe out the Armenian population. As a presidential candidate in 2008, Obama stated that the killings amounted to genocide, though he was careful not to say so during Monday's address. Instead, he encouraged Turkey to resolve its dispute with neighbor Armenia and to reopen their shared border, saying "Reckoning with the past can help us seize a better future." Earlier Monday, he said simply that he had not changed his views on the mass killings, which were already "on the record." Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million mostly Christian Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks in the years leading up to and during World War I -- an event viewed by many scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey claims the toll has been inflated and the casualties were victims of civil war and unrest. In 2006, Turkey temporarily suspended military ties with France after the French parliament's lower house adopted a bill to criminalize denying the killings as genocide. The French bill never passed into law, but other countries including Canada, Argentina, Poland and Russia have declared the killings a genocide. Obama said Monday he wanted to encourage Turkish-Armenian talks, not tilt them in favor of one country. He praised "courageous" contacts between Turkish and Armenian leaders aimed at reconciliation, and said Turkey should reopen the border it closed in 1993 in support of Azerbaijan during its conflict with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. "An open border would return the Turkish and Armenian people to a peaceful and prosperous coexistence that would serve both of your nations," the American president said. Obama also urged Turkey to drop its resistance to reopening a Greek Orthodox seminary, a key demand by the European Union to strengthen Ankara's bid for membership in the bloc. The Halki Theological School on Heybeliada Island, near Istanbul, was closed to new students in 1971 under a law that put religious and military training under state control. The school closed its doors in 1985, when the last five students graduated. Turkey argues that a religious institution without government oversight is not compatible with the country's secular institutions. All Muslim clerics in Turkey are provided by the government with training, payment and even scripts for Friday sermons.